Give a Boy a Gun
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: There are no exceptions made for Turks. ( Sequel to Tini's ever-famous Northern Lights )


Author's Note: Yes, well. . . This could be called my goodbye to my fandom, but I always hated finality. =/ But, really, this may be the last new thing you see of mine around, so sayonara to anyone I don't see after this. Been fun. Many thanks to Tini for letting me borrow her "Nothern Lights" Reno for this one.  
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Give a Boy a Gun  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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On a day when the fog falls so thick on barren fields that you can't even take a look at the untainted part of the world and understand how it's meant to be seen; a day when you can't throw a ball and see it when it hits the dew-dotted grass stretching for miles on every side of you, the hardest thing a man can try to do is bite the bullet and carry on.  
  
The weather was horridly reminiscent of that day, years ago, when he had first started believing in an entity of any sort. He'd said seven words before bed that night, in a Turk trainee suit, kneeling at the foot of a rickety four-poster castoff in the ShinRa storage room: "Forgive me, Rory, for I have sinned." He'd never gone to sleep in any way without saying a prayer since that day; that day he'd pulled a black cord and disappointed his sister one final time.  
  
Once in a while, he would look down and over, expecting to see her there. A few times she'd been waiting for him, standing there with her arms crossed and a disapproving look on her face. "It's Aurora, not Rory!" she'd insisted to him, and he'd smiled the smile a brother gives to his sister, his last lighthouse in a choppy sea, just one flicker of light to get him to land.  
  
So far, one light was all he'd needed.  
  
He'd heard all his life that he would die over some failed drug deal, another name on the endless list of Viper hits or something. He wasn't sure if it was an act of rebellion that he was sitting out in a field owned by just another Mister So-and-Such with two guns in front of him, or if he'd just been sent here by the last time he'd seen his little sister's ghost, laying in air next to his respectable, Turk-issue four-poster with satin sheets.  
  
At maybe midnight, he'd sat up, a product of the nightmare he'd constantly suffered since the night Camen had tasted the barrel of Johnny's grimy Colt. He'd looked over, maybe to check what time it was, and Rory had been there, laying on thin air as he'd seen her last as a physical person. There were no tubes this time, but the wounds were the same, and she was laying just as he'd left her. She'd kept a straight face as she'd told him, "Hey, Reno! Now I got a scar, just like you."  
  
Tseng had burst in on Reno screaming, thrashing around in his bed in a half-asleep state, and had settled him down. He'd listened, and Reno had told him the story again, about Rory's smile that didn't just light up rooms, but made black holes cower; about how he'd gotten his scars and memories; about Camen, the Vipers, the Jackals, how he and Johnny had been planning on getting an apartment somewhere nice, making a new life for all of them.  
  
Reno knew it had taken every ounce of strength his Wutain companion had to tell him he was fired. "Someone of your mental unstability can't be a member of the Turks, Reno," Tseng had said as he'd handed him a handgun, chamber forcefully removed years prior. "I'm not making you kill yourself, but a former Turk is much safer if he knows nothing of the inside life."  
  
"What's this?" the redhead had asked carefully; quietly. He'd been holding the six-shooter up by the hole where the chamber had been. He'd dreaded the answer the moment he knew he wanted to know it, and for good reason. "You don't expect me to kill myself without somewhere to put the bullets."  
  
Tseng had paused, before handing over his own gun, with one shot left. "A bad Turk is a Turk who can't kill himself in one shot," he'd said quietly, "and he deserves being pistol-whipped by himself until he dies, cold and alone. It's company policy, Reno. Now leave," he'd ordered, turning his back on the same man he'd saved from impending death in the slums on the same day this one could be traced back to.  
  
He'd taken nothing, just those two guns and the memories of everything Tseng had done for him over the years; but he'd paused at the doorway to ask, ever so softly, "What happened your heart, Tseng?"  
  
Tseng had tensed, and an all-too-knowing hand trailed down to retrieve a pendant from his pocket, holding it up over his shoulder so his employee and friend could see it. It was a forked piece of silver, intented with three marks, symbol of VIP status in Beelzebub. It had been a gang that had seen its glory days years before the Jackals had ever seen the mean side of the streets. "Devil hearts burn in hell," he'd murmured, head turned slightly. The pendant hit the Wutain's pocket again, and the door had clattered against the loose jamb as Reno turned, walked out, and never looked back.  
  
He hadn't been sure where to go from there; Elena and Rude would take him in at their apartment, but there would be constant mingling with Tseng; he may have even pulled them from the program for lack of focus because of Reno, and that would not do. And so he'd walked.  
  
A week later, having walked when he could, and looking as rough as he had at fourteen on the streets, Reno'd found himself in Wutai. "Forgive me, Rory, for I have sinned," were the only words he'd said since asking Tseng that final question, challenging his decency. Lord Godo had died four months ago, and Reno had been seeing the hidden side of his daughter, now Lady Yuffie, on his missions there.  
  
His first step into her office and she'd had him against the sliding door, not bothering to ask why he was there or how long he was staying; instead, she'd asked in low tones for three hours of his time and told him that they were each other's for as long as they wanted. She'd given him her bed for three days before really trying to talk to him about why he was there.  
  
"The past won't do anything but bite you in the ass," he'd finished with, smelling of sex and alcohol, tracing a nonsense pattern on her shoulder with the butt of his cigarette, in retribution for her fingernail, scratching her name on his chest repeatedly. It would show for a moment, then fade, like a temporary brand, something she'd given up to shift and put her forehead against his neck.  
  
She'd sighed, and asked him softly, lips brushing his throat, "Then why do you still wear the suit? And why not stay with me now? I could have robes tailored for you, y'know. I could pardon you, and the guard wouldn't breathe down your neck every time you came up here. You could stay here; hell, live here if you want."  
  
He hadn't been sure if it was a plea or a suggestion; either way, it didn't faze him a bit. The Meteor issue had kept him alert, without time to think about Rory, which was why Tseng had kept him on through that whole ordeal. He wanted to feel that rush again; always moving, always alert, always on a job. Settling down and living somewhere would make him think more, see his sister more. "I can't," was all he'd said.  
  
He'd walked again.  
  
And that was what had brought him here, on a warm day blanketed by that thick fog, sitting in a wet field in a navy blue three-piece suit. Tseng's guns were in front of him, calling to him. He'd settled down for three days and he was already snapping; that was sign enough that unless he could keep moving for the rest of his life, it wasn't worth it at all.  
  
Blood-stained fingers wrapped around a cool steel gun, and a small circular spot on his temple felt cool and refreshing until his own anxiety numbed him. Reno looked to the little sky he could truly make out in the fog, and laughed, changing the prayer this time. "Hey, Rory. Now I've got a scar. . .just like you."  
  
The other gun was rusted from the cool, Wutain spring rains before they found him.  
  
Reno was a good Turk.  
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-Fin.  
03.07.04  
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Author's Note: Posting this today, because this is the day that the Japanese techno band Schwarz Stein is disbanding. Useless reason to put this up here? Yes, but what else is notable lately? Go read the other fic I posted on the twenty-fourth in the Cowboy Bebop section. I like it. Again, thanks to Tini for letting me screw with her Reno.  
  
Sayonara,  
Reno 


End file.
